Full citation: Dillon, B., & Voena, A. (2017). Inheritance Customs and Agricultural Investment (January 18, 2017).
Record Topic: Customary Practices
Women and Land: Securing Rights for Better Lives
Full citation: Budlender, D. and Alma, E., “Women and Land: Securing Rights for Better Lives,” IDRC PAPERS (November 2011). – This book focuses on recent findings from sub Saharan Africa on women and land. It finds: • Participation-oriented research methods are much more likely to bring about immediate benefits than other, more traditional research methods. • Merely passing legislation is of little effect without the necessary resources for implementation, without informing and educating all relevant actors on the provisions of the legislation, without monitoring the reforms, and without effective sanctions on failure to implement. • It is crucial both to […]
Accessing Justice: Models, Strategies and Best Practices on Women’s Empowerment
Full citation: IDLO, “Accessing Justice: Models, Strategies and Best Practices on Women’s Empowerment,” IDLO REPORT (2013). – This paper highlights some of the challenges and solutions for women’s access to justice in diverse legal systems. It shows that women face structural and cultural barriers to accessing justice – insufficient knowledge of rights and remedies, illiteracy or poor literacy, and lack of resources or time to participate in justice processes. This is all the more so as women usually have intensive family responsibilities. Even where women can access the formal justice sector, the outcomes of the process often fall far short […]
Study on the Harmonisation of Customary Laws and the National Legal System in South Sudan
Land Tenure Rights for Women Under Customary Law
By Kat Oak
Full citation: Benbih, K. and Katz, J. (2014). “Land Tenure Rights for Women Under Customary Law.” – This paper highlights women’s rights issues in accessing land under dual systems. The goal is to make the knowledge resulting from the use of a platform, such as the Global Housing Policy Indicators (GHI), accessible on an open source to all land specialists, NGOs, policy makers, governmental agencies, as well as a global audience, including women around the world. The cases presented illustrate various difficulties to secure land tenure for women. The GHI assessment tool finds first hand evidence of the discrepancies between […]
Enhancing Customary Justice Systems in the Mau Forest, Kenya: Impact Evaluation Report
Full citation: Freudenburg, M., & Santos, F. (2013). “Enhancing Customary Justice Systems in the Mau Forest, Kenya: Impact Evaluation Report.” USAID. – This paper evaluates a project which piloted an approach for improving women’s access to justice, particularly related to women’s land rights, by enhancing the customary justice system in one target area: Ol Pusimoru sub-location, Mau Forest, Kenya. The Justice Project consisted of: (1) delivery of a training curriculum to targeted groups (Chiefs, Elders, women and youth) focused on civic education, legal literacy, rights and responsibilities related to land and forest resources (with special emphasis on rights of women […]
Towards Customary Legal Empowerment in Namibia: Enhancing gender equality in customary justice systems
Full citation: Ubink, J.M. (2011). “Towards Customary Legal Empowerment in Namibia: Enhancing gender equality in customary justice systems.” International Development Law Organisation. – In Namibia, national authorities have made various interventions aimed at enhancing the functioning of customary law and traditional leadership. These efforts include both the creation of institutional linkages as well as community-based activities. One issue has been the position of women under customary law, and especially the fact that widows often have no rights to their deceased husbands’ lands. At a workshop, the traditional leaders present unanimously decided that widows should not be chased from their lands […]
Empowering Widows: An Overview of policies and programmes in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka
Full citation: UN Women. (2014). “Empowering Widows: An Overview of policies and programmes in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka.” – This paper finds that strengthening engagement with civil society in the implementation of government programs results in a more enabling environment for widows to claim services, including land rights. Focus group discussions in India and Nepal showed that widows who were a part of this collaborative effort were more articulate, confident and aware of their rights. This played an important role in helping them claim their entitlements, including land rights. In Sri Lanka, widows have been able to take advantage […]
Key Points and Conclusions from the Women’s Land Rights Research Consortium Expert Group Meeting
This Synthesis Report covers key points and gaps identified in the annotated bibliography, research themes and questions, which were discussed with and supplemented by the expert group. It also includes a list of other observations made at the expert group meeting related to laying the foundation for the Research Consortium as it begins activities and provides an overview of the communications assessment and needs uncovered in the participant survey and in subsequent discussion by the expert group.
Land Sector Analysis: Gender/Family Issues and Land Rights Component
This paper was prepared for the Government of the Republic of Uganda.